What This is All About

McKay is now a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. She is serving in the Romania/ Moldova Mission for a year and a half. While she is away- her family (that's us) will be posting her weekly emails and updates for loved ones to this blog.

Monday, March 9, 2015

3.9.15 Week 6 Bacau, Romania

Okay okay... IM HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!! I am in Romania! And wow... this has been the CRAZIEST week of my life hands down. But easily one of the greatest, most adventurous weeks EVER. Hahha, adventure is out there! :) So, I spent the first night in Bucharest, Romania with all of the new trainees. That was nuts. We ended up sprinting across almost the entire centru to get to an appointment on time for our Visas. We went on a run around the lake here. We did classes and went to the site of the dedication of the mission, in Cismigiu Park.

SO, as you know, Romania is only a 25 year old mission! They celebrated the 25th birthday last month. How great is that! The gospel is SO new here. It's back to basics, and I love it. I absolutely LOVE it.

Romania is VERY BEAUTIFUL, and very very interesting at the same time! Communism fell in 1989, so not so long ago... and this sounds strange, but the damage still remains. There is a lingering feeling from the damage that was done here. It's very historic and the architecture is SO beautiful, but so damaged and run down. The city is very gothic looking and its sooo cool. Romanians are so strong and so proud of their strength and endurance and freedom through the past years, its a wonderful country and I am in LOVE with it. So yeah, its been so cool to get to know the cities and hear the language a lot more :)

I got assigned to the city of BACAU, Romania. (Bah-coh). Without a doubt.. the most ghetto city in the country. HOW AWESOME. Hahah, but... I absolutely adore Bacau already. We have a tiny little branch here in Bacau, and there are only 8 members. It's so great, the missionaries run the branch. Its really challenging, to balance and maintain the branch and keep it stable. But I love it, its so wonderful to bond with the members and to be able to teach and lead the branch! I was asked to speak in Sacrament yesterday, which was pretty scary. But I managed to somehow get my point across in Romanian, so that's good. There are 3 ADORABLE little old ladies in the branch, and they come up to me and just yell at me in Romanian because they are deaf.. and they kiss me all over my face and say 'va pup' (va poop) which means 'I kiss you'... and I have no idea what they are saying to me so I just smile and say 'Da!'....:) Hahahah such a great branch, I LOVE SERVING HERE IN BACAU.

My companion is Sora Long, she is 22. She is me, in 3 years. No joke, we get along GREAT and we are freakishly alike. She is an amazing trainer and we have SO much fun together! And we share a love for the same tv shows, movies, songs... it's just perfect. I love her and she is so good at pushing me and challenging me and helping me grow as a missionary.

Also.... you guys... the people here are SO FASHIONABLE. Which is so strange because the cities are so rundown and ghetto.. but everyone always looks amazing and has great style. Seriously, God sent me to Europe... and specifically Romania... because he KNOWS I LOVE CLOTHES.Hahahahahah. Its just a total dream come true here :)

I have to share probably the greatest thing that's ever happened to me. Ever. Haha. So, we have ONE investigator. It's very difficult to find people here, we tract all day and contact nonstop too. But, we found this lady's address in the area book, and decided to go to her house. There was no phone number (we should have seen that as a red flag.. hahah) BUT ANYWAYS, we walked like an HOUR to her house. She lives what we call 'la tara', which means in the country, and it was very far away. So we get to her house and it was a tiny little shack with junk EVERYWHERE.. and she comes to the gate... and she is this tiny little GYPSY!!!! Yes... gypsy.

They are EVERYWHERE, here! And they are crazy, I tell ya. So this lady was a complete whacko. My comp and I had NO IDEA what she was talking about. And so we just talked about prayer and the Cartea lui Mormon, and then tried to get outta there. But she offered us some funky drink and we were like NOPE. Hahah. So we got outta there REAL quick. But she was actually really sweet and adorable, just a little sketchy that's all :) But she obviously needed to hear that God loves her.

So its been a crazy great week. I love Bacau, I love Romania. The language is coming along great! I can DEFINITELY feel the Savior with me every step of the way. I am so thankful every single day that I am out here doing his work, in his name. What a blessing that is! I am so grateful for his help and for his influence in our choices and our actions here. The mission is the most fantastic thing I could be doing right now. Something I have learned this week... never underestimate the influence you can have on people :)